Tarek Lakhrissi - SICK SAD WORLD

In SICK SAD WORLD, the latest creation by Tarek Lakhrissi, we are invited to gather around a bed of stones where a teenager is talking about feeling that he is eccentric. The set created by the artist as part of his Risquons-Tout exhibition at WIELS shows a teenager’s bedroom with banners on which the words “sick”, “sad” and “world” are embroidered in place of posters of his idols. The teenager is made up in a monstrous way and the dream landscape in which Tarek Lakhrissi positions this portrait oscillates between the classical and the theatrical. Think of a 17th century opera combined with the cult 1990s series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. SICK SAD WORLD is part of a cycle in the artist’s young work that concentrates on alternative and futuristic worlds in which the expressions of queer and minority identities are embodied in the form of “made-up stories”. The performance, heavily influenced by pillow talk, the lyrical aesthetic of opera and queer lip sync, will be accompanied by a haunting soundscape of electronic music and voiceover that threatens to continue haunting us all in our dreams.